Q - So this God Particle - it disproves God, doesn't it?
A - No.
Q - Oh. Only I met Kenny from the Beaker Secularists in the White Horse, and he said it did.
A - Well he would, wouldn't he. He keeps telling us that suffering disproves God, like suffering was only discovered yesterday. He tells us the M25, wasps, cosmic rays, washing machines and Basingstoke all disprove God. Although he's got a point with the last one.
Q - So what does it tell us about God, then?
A - If you're an atheist, nothing. If you're not interested in science, nothing. If you believe in God and you're interested in science, then it's another hint that the universe is a rational place - since it was predicted in the 60s that something like this would exist, and now we've seen what looks like it. And if the universe is rational, and you believe in a God who created it that way, you'd expect God also to be rational. In the same way that if you look at the randomness and confusion all this rationality causes, you'd guess God is also a bit of a reckless chancer. But that's a different debate.
Q - So how does this God Particle work then?
A - Will you stop calling it that? That's a silly name that causes all this confusion.
Q - OK. So how does the Higgs Boson work?
A - Imagine you're crawling through a child's play tunnel - but the sides of the tunnel are smeared with blackcurrant jam, and as you crawl through the tunnel you get more and more covered in jam. And as you get stickier you slow down.
Q - So that's how the Higgs Boson attributes mass to other particles?
A - No. But that was some weekend retreat last year, wasn't it?
I thought that I was seeing double, than I realised that the Arch Druid had double posted :(
ReplyDeleteHowever, getting back to the God particle!
What particle of God does it represent? Is it an outcome of his action in creation, or is it a bye-product of that action creating the particle?
I appreciate that God is omnipotent and omniscient, but is he actually, physically there? or is he here in spirit?
Whatever description scientists apply to the God particle, they haven't given an explanation of how it came into being, nor, how it gives 'Mass' to everything in creation?
Questions, questions - I think that the book of Genesis will need to be amended to explain how God's particle gave mass to all of creation.
I think I'd like to hear more about the Higgs Boson and the Catholic Priest. Much more fun than blackcurrant jam.
ReplyDeleteBeing halfserious for a moment, tho I far prefer flippancy, I supect the nickname "God" particle is purely the God-of-the-gaps argument, which is really keeping everything tidy.
ReplyDeleteI mean, If you believe God IS the creator,as outlined, no more, in genesis, and not arbitrary, having given everything a law which will not pass away, as per the psalm, it remains true that as science advances there will always be areas not reached. I t is often a fair criticism, by scientists regarding other scientists, that just plugging God directly into the "difficult bits" is a copout.- (they unfairly extend this. England's existance does not directly determine how a surgeon opeates on apatient, but without England, neither would be here.)
The math of late classical astronomy with epicycles DID predict stellar movements sufficiently for the time - but somthing had to produce movement, so angels were made directly responsible for a 24/7 job of pushing planets etc about the skies.Until newton, then until einstein , it keeps changing..... ( Which doesnt mean that Jacob was mistaken - if the Good lord sees fit to have angels everywhere, and sees fit to have that knowledge passed on to us, we are the more assured that We have a loving "hands on " creator, as opposed to the rather newtonian/publicservice -trade- union idea of creation and the creator:Preamble: Time is your own creation , but be bound by it , so as to make life easier for atheists, professional theologians etc. They need help to convince the plebs.
days 1to 7: create ,and set in motion .Day 7: start resting.
Rest of eternity: Teabreak.
Let it all get on with it.
Return occasionally to tweak insufficiently well-designed-for-eternity bits.)
Equally, both what we do (think we)and don't ( watch this space) understand of the universe DOES carry on day to day.
Equally, the vast amount of intellectual work and the world's most expensive machines have been chuntering along for half a century with a nondiscovered keystone : either find it, or start over. I had a Cern employee waxing eloquently but flippantly to me on this but months ago.
All the journalists who are more ignorant than thee and me, which is hard work but they manage, have been reading more than there is into the nickname for years and months. It's like thinking that the British aim in WWII to sink the Bismark was on account of the vessel's name.
T end on a flippant note : your jam analogy/model is a good as many on the telegraph blogs today, the prze is a spelling-checker error correctin n for m in boson
Meanwhile, Tipler wrote that if the HB were found to have such-and-such properties, it would be evidence in favor of his Omega Point hypothesis. So, was this confirmed or not?
ReplyDeleteYou should hear the secularist atheists of the Basingstoke chapter of atheist secularists, they really know how to milk a Catholic joke.
ReplyDeleteSo, if the Higgs-Bosen is to do with God, and God lives in us, then we are all full of these thingies, and does that mean that we all might explode if we collide with eachother now that we have discovered it? Should I feel scared or rapturerd or elated or what? I'm definitely confused. Please explain, but in small words.
ReplyDelete